


Her Time

by ljs



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8487253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: Set just after the film.It's 11:45 pm on a frosty night when she breaks down and opens the email, the twelfth this week.





	

It's 11:45 pm on a frosty night when she breaks down and opens the email, the twelfth this week.

 _Dear Christine_ , it reads, _remember the night we went skating in Rockefeller Center? You got cold ridiculously quickly, shivering there as I tried to get you to go faster 'round the curves. You were – are – right too often. Hope you're wrapped up safe and warm tonight._ It's signed, without any farewell or affectation, just _Stephen._

There in her little rent-controlled haven in Brooklyn, she does remember that night. His hands on the small of her back, pushing through her resistance and her winter coat, sending branches of warmth throughout her body. The lights and the stupid music and Stephen smiling down at her–

Until, of course, he had started talking about himself again. That had been Stephen for you.

Laughing a little – at herself, at him -- she scrolls through her photos on her phone. She's got one from that night: a moment, captured, when Dr Stephen Strange smiles sweetly at her. Just at her. He's not talking in the image.

And now she remembers him, battered and impossible, his soft eyes gazing down at her, in a prep room at the hospital. She remembers scarred hands trembling against her face. Their connection for a moment had been stronger than ever.

She doesn't reply to the email, not in words. But she sends him that photograph.  
………………………..

It's 9:30 on a Thursday night, and she's drinking with her old friend Claire, who'd been a nurse in the same ER when Christine was interning. They are not all that alike, and they now live in different parts of the city, but the bond they share is important, so they have a solemn pact to grab a drink every couple of months. It's time. 

Claire's a little harried these days. Lots of responsibilities that press in on her, she says. 

"Would those responsibilities be a guy? Or guys?" Christine says, grinning, because she knows how wounded men find her friend. It's almost like magic. (She pushes aside a quick flash of Stephen saying something about sorcery, because _come on_. Yet the memory lingers like a shadow of flame after a match is blown out.)

Claire's smile is wry. "You want to go there with yourself, girl? 'Cause I can go there."

Christine sighs. "It's not the right time for me."

"I hear you," Claire says, and they toast to their friendship, to the important things not said, to boundaries and to connections.

When Christine walks outside, the wind is bitter. She wraps her scarf around her throat and thinks – reluctantly – about the time Stephen gave it to her. They'd been near Macy's, on another cold night, and he'd huffed impatiently about her inefficiency in taking care of herself and then run in and grabbed this for her. It's soft expensive cashmere, because Stephen is, or maybe was, the kind of man who preferred the finest of things and liked throwing cash at a problem. Money had always been easier than caring. 

Her phone pings. A text. It's from Stephen. But it's just an image of the Brooklyn bridge, a beacon in the night. It was taken from the other side of the river, and – this is weird – from a great height. She can't think of where the vantage point was.

She sends a quick reply. _Where are you?_

 _Wishing I were there_ , he replies almost instantly.

_Stop it. Where?_

A long pause before his next reply. _I'm in NYC. I'm here now. Most of the time._

She stands here, one hand on her phone, one hand absently petting her scarf, looking at the lights of the bar across the street, looking at nothing.

Then, her fingers cold, _Not yet, Stephen._

…………………………

A week later – a distracted, memory-haunted week later – it's frostbite-cold again. She stumbles home at midnight after an absolutely insane double-shift, and drops onto her couch, exhausted. She's almost too tired to take off her coat, but she makes herself shrug it off.

Before she takes off the scarf, however, her fingers caress the cashmere. She thinks of Stephen's silly, attractive goatee the last time she'd seen him on that unbelievable night. She'd touched his chin after she'd stopped shocking him alive – or whatever the hell that was -- and it was so soft. He could be soft, sometimes. 

She thinks of his mouth on hers, the night she gave him a watch. Hard, arrogant Stephen's lips had trembled then.

She thinks of scarred hands trembling against her face. She thinks of his deep voice whispering crazy things into her ear, and her own desire and confusion writing itself in shudders along her spine. She thinks of cold. His hands had been warm.

Wearily she gets up – just as her phone pings. Text. Stephen. _I miss you, Christine. Are you well?_

She stretches, one luxuriant undulation of spine and arms, before she answers. _I miss you too. Soon._

The reply is instant. _Tell me when._

 _When I'm not worn out after two shifts and some superhero weirdness in midtown,_ she sends back. 

_Just give me a sign and I'll be there_ , he sends back. _I'm better at reading signs these days._

Laughing – at herself, at him – she goes toward the kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea. As she goes, however, she looks out her window and sees an odd circle of –sparks? What? – outside her fourth-floor window. She remembers that moment of utter disorientation in the broom closet, and him disappearing into a circle exactly like that….

"Just wait, you asshole," she says out loud, laughing still, and turns on the tap to fill the kettle, and gets down two cups.

She knows it's time. Her time to choose.


End file.
